BP in talks to settle Texas City fine -OSHA memo

HOUSTON, March 8 (Reuters) - BP Plc (BP.N) (BP.L) is in talks with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration to settle a record fine slapped on the energy giant last year for safety violations at its Texas City, Texas, refinery, according to an internal OSHA memo.

A BP spokesman declined to discuss the memo.

The memo, dated Feb. 26, was provided by Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur's office and first reported about by the Toledo Blade newspaper.

The memo was prepared for U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis by OSHA chief David Michaels and Deborah Greenfield, acting deputy solicitor of the department. It lays out the reasons for more than $3 million in fines announced on Monday by OSHA against BP joint-venture refinery in Ohio. [ID:nN08187710]

In October, OSHA slapped BP with a record $87.4 million fine for safety violations found after a deadly March 2005 explosion at the Texas City refinery, which killed 15 workers and injured 180 other people.

OSHA said BP had failed to correct problems found after the 2005 blast and listed new worker safety violations found in inspections performed in 2009. BP has contested the fines before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

"OSHA and BP are currently in settlement discussions about these contested proceedings," Michaels and Greenfield wrote in the memo.

OSHA and Solis have also discussed the violations with the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, which oversees a criminal probation BP entered into last year after pleading guilty to a U.S. Clean Air Act violation stemming from the explosion. (Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)